Welcome back. In your Leadership, I'm Chris and I'm Lorenzo. And Lorenzo.
On today's discussion, we're going to be continuing what we started last Monday
on the advice that coaches would give to their younger selves. Per this Forbes
Leadership article written by the Forbes Coaches Council, where they were kind of listing
pieces of advice they would give to their younger selves that would help them become
better coaches earlier in their career. This is rooted in the fact that a
lot of organizations are starting to put a much higher level of importance on the
idea that coaching is a very large part of leadership and leaders who coach well
will tend to be more successful leaders. Last week we talked about listening.
On today's episode, the first topic I want to talk about a piece of
advice is this idea of pacing yourself. One of the people in the Forbes
Council of Coaches says that if you're a high performer, you can be ANXIO
to you know, advance and to move forward in your career. They wish
someone would have coached them to raise their hand to ask for additional assignments,
and and it's it's an interesting thing because you know, I've always thought that,
you know, do do the work, do it well, and people
will notice that. And once I started getting to a place where I'm leading
teams, I'm starting to realize that, you know what, there's no way
for me to notice every single thing that every team member is doing all the
time unless they actually call it out. It's not it's not you know,
a lack of humility. It's not an annoyance to raise your end and say
this is what I've done. I want more, give me something else.
Additional, it will help a person move up in their career more if they
are raising their hand, because quite honestly, the squeaky wheel gets degrees.
Sometimes I'm constantly looking for those that raise their hands, and I think the
first step is thanking them for doing it right. I think sometimes we forget
that, Like, like you know, when people raise their hand for more,
they raise their hand for an assignment, they raise their hand for interest
in a promotion. I think it's important that we say thank you because that's
what we need. We need, we need people that are self motivated to
want to take on more. Then the second conversation we have to have.
It's okay, well, let's talk about it. Let's talk about the kind
of readiness, like like, how are you currently doing in your role,
what are the things that you're currently working on? How are you able to
free up you know, the bandwidth to do these types of things. And
and I share that because sometimes as a leader, helping them to pace is
critical. Helping yourself to pace is important. And I think to your point,
like you learn these things over time. And but but I've always looked
back on that and I've seen and I've had times when I've had great leaders
that have told me like, hey, you're taking on too much right,
like, like you keep on raising your hand for everything, You're gonna get
distracted. You're gonna kind of like you're gonna work to it. You're gonna
get you know, burn yourself out. You're gonna have too many things going
on. You can't possibly deliver at the expectation that you have if you have
all of these things that you have going on. And I've you know,
taken that advice. That's been helpful, and sometimes it's been painful sometimes,
like you don't want to hear that you're trying to get everything done right,
You're you're you're motivated, you're driven, you want to get stuff done.
But that that pace part is really really important. And I think it's hard
for us to self regulate pace. I do believe it takes someone to help
us kind of point that out. Because if if you are able to self
regulate, pay self regulate your pace, the question you might have to ask
is like, am I going fast enough? Right? You know? So,
I think sometimes like the best way to learn that, And I think
the way that it's helped the most is to have someone who is a mentor,
is a great leader, somebody that you do trust. That's helpful in
saying like, hey, you have a lot going on, let's let's let's
at least talk about it. But I also think that we have to not
limit people's ability to get things done. I think that great leaders and great
people they'll let you know when maybe their plate is a little too full.
They'll let you know, like when you have to when they have to pull
back a little bit on something. So I think there there's a little bit
of a balance there that's needed. Like you don't want to limit people's opportunities,
but you also need to make sure that they're moving at an appropriate pace
based upon the goals that they have and the skills that they have. Quite
frankly, right right. I had an employee report to me a few years
ago who applied for a promotion and was given the feedback that they weren't ready
for that promotion yet, that they had been in their current role for only
a few months, and that they couldn't possibly have amassed enough experience and information
in their current role to allow them to move up effectively into the next role.
And the conversation I had with them seemed to go well, and then
a month later, when another spot opened up for the same position, they
applied again and I was surprised. I was like, wait, what was
this a mistake? And I very quickly had to realize that, okay,
the conversation that I thought I had with them was not the one that they
took from it, and that they the timelines weren't clear, and quite honestly,
there is no timeline you can set to say this is the right thing.
After this many months, you're going to be ready, because there are
some people who won't be ready after won't ever be ready, and there will
be people who'll be ready sooner rather than later. And so I had to
revisit the conversation with that employee and go over a list of things that I
wanted to make sure that they were confident in doing so. It didn't start
with me saying don't apply again. It was a conversation that said, Okay,
if you're serious about this, I want to make sure you understand these
are the things that you will have to do to hit the ground running on
day one that shouldn't require any coaching or training. You have to be able
to do these right away. And then these are the things you'll have to
get done that there will be some coaching and training involved, and that you're
not expected to kind of know how to do them great right at the beginning.
And that conversation was a lot more eye opening for that person. So
it's not just a you know, you're not ready yet, or this vague
kind of like there's a there's a timeline associated with it, because it's not
a timeline, it's a it's a list of things that they should be able
to get done in order to make sure they will be successful in a role
and that they don't burn out. I think when employees do this, it's
because they believe that nothing will ever happen unless they make it happen for themselves,
and so they use every opportunity to try to make things happen for themselves.
And that type of mindset should not be kind of tamped down in a
person. It should just be tempered with the knowledge of what it takes to
move forward. But it will only work if that employee has confidence in you
as a leader, that you are looking out for them, that you're not
trying to just tell them to not speak up anymore because you're tired of it,
that you that you want them to be successful. You're committed to helping
them get to that place if that's where they want to be. But that
will take regular conversation and check ins and and and a forward looking mindset to
where they want to go as a as a long term and short term goal,
and then what you can do to help them get there. Because once
they understand that you will do that as a leader, and they see that
happening in action, they're a lot less likely to try to jump the gun
and potentially find themselves in a role that they really weren't prepared for Yeah,
it's great. I think that one of the things I discuss a lot is
not confusing milestones and mile markers. And what I mean by that is like
it's it's all a journey, Like there is no true finish line when you
think about career progression until you're done with your career, right, Like you
know, like everything else is a journey, and it should be some type
of movement, you know, from a progress standpoint, and and so you
know, taking the time to learn, take time to grow, taking the
time to have enough skill to be successful at the next level. And we've
talked about this before on the show, but like kind of Malcolm Gladwell's ten
thousand Hours and like the Art of Mastery and that type of thing where it's
like in a full time job, that's five years, forty hours a week
over the course of five years, Like that's ten thousand hours in that job.
Now, I'm not saying that you have to do the same job for
ten years or for five years. What I'm saying is that you need to
take the time in a role to see the vast majority of what you're going
to see in that role at that level of responsibility. That's going to help
you be prepared for the next level of responsibility and so that you're not You're
not you know, coming across these things for the first time that you should
already know that you'd already had some exposure to And that type of pacing is
it means that, like I don't have a timeline for each individual person.
One of the things that you know that that bugs me with sometimes how companies,
organizations, leaders do things like talent planning that type stuff. They try
to put timelines on things. Right, Chris, Chris is going to be
ready for the next job, and in six to twelve months, Chris is
gonna be ready for the next job, and one to two app Chris can
be ready for the next job next week. You know what I'm saying,
Like not in twelve months? Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like what the
job is, what the responsibilities are, what we need, what the talent
pop plan looks like, what he's capable of. Now. I understand that,
like we need to be able to assess like what people need skill wise,
but the fact that we think we can tie time to skill building and
refinement, that to me doesn't add up. It just it doesn't make sense
to me. Because people learn differently, they absorb differently, they apply things
differently. People come in already with a basket full of experience, background and
capability, and sometimes that goes dormant when you put them into roles where they
don't have to use certain things. But by by by you know, giving
them expanded responsibilities or assignments or a different leader, all of a sudden,
this person can really show up in these spaces. So anyway, I just
I think that pace for me really does come down to the individual and and
requires a lot of actual dialogue, conversation coaching in this kind of context,
like like knowing that that that there's there's skills that people have, skills that
people have to refine, skills that people have to build, and that that's
actually going to help us to better understand the pace, but that there has
to be a pace there there's there should be you know, there should be
always movements and and that should be adjusted based upon what the next goal is
and kind of the current state of you know, where you're at from a
from a development standpoint. Yeah, you're you're spot on with that. I
want to go over the next piece of advice in this episode because I think
it ties in very heavily with this idea of pacing yourself. And then the
next piece of advice that that coaches wish they had had as as younger people
in their careers is this idea of following your dreams. I think it relates
to pacing yourself because it's when when a person is doing something that isn't necessarily
in line with what their their ultimate goals or dreams are, they can oftentimes
try to substitute that with very quick or fast movement within a career path that
they don't want because they they're they're they're a trying to run away from something.
They're trying to want to run away from whatever the current role there is
that they're doing in order to get into something else. That could be a
sign of that, or it could be that they don't know them articulate or
even know what their dreams are what they want to do, and so they
they're they're trying to figure out a way to measure a forward movement. And
if you know what your dreams are and you can articulate them, and I'm
not meaning dreams in a cliche term, I mean like short term and long
term goals, what do you actually want to do and articulate that. If
a person can do that, they're far less likely to to, you know,
run full speed ahead into career path that is not for them, unless
they are you know, afraid or they you know, have this you know,
kind of the the imposter syndrome or way something they don't deserve, whatever,
those those dreams are. So as a leader, when you're talking to
your people about pacing themselves, one of the things that you can do is
talking to them about what their long term goals are and what you can do
as leader to help them get there. If a person is earlier in their
career, they are far more likely to be able to find the courage to
take steps towards following their dreams than when they're later on in their career and
they have responsibilities they have to consider they may not have had when they were
when they were younger or earlier on in their career. And so the people
who can articulate that sooner, and and I'm not talking about how you know,
when you meet with your guidance counselor in eighth grade, you're supposed say
what you want to do for a living. That's ridiculous. I'm talking about
a person being able to articulate, who is an adult, who is in
something that could be a career path, to be able to articulate where they
see themselves in five years, both within this career as well as if they
were doing something totally different. What would they do if it wasn't here?
And is that something that appeals to them? How can you as a leader
help them get there? The conversations around one will help strengthen the relationship with
the person that will help move forward on the conversation about the other, and
they work together, I think in that regard. Yeah, I like the
fact that they use the term kind of dreams because I think it's something that
I like how you talked through it, like the dreams and in goals.
And then because when I hear the term dreams, I think of that like
like these are things that we want, but we maybe lack the courage to
go work towards right, right, Like that's that's kind of what I hear
in dreams is kind of like I really want to do that, but I
don't know if I can. I don't know if I'm capable, I don't
know if I'm good enough, Like I don't know if I'm willing to,
you know, push out of whatever. Maybe you know, expectations that that
are there for me, myself, for my parents, my significant others,
my friends, all that type of things. So, but I think it's
important to understand what they are, like, like, you know, you
can, you should, and you should be thinking about what are you working
towards. And that's kind of what I hear in dreams, and you'll have
goals on the way there. But if there's something that you really want to
to involve yourself in when it comes to how you spend time in a career
and how you spend time like creating income for yourself, the closer you get
to knowing what that is, and the more that you can spend time talking
about it and discussing it and then like taking things on to learn about how
you can make those dreams come become a reality. I think that's super important.
And I think that allows you to have an intrinsic motivation that will push
you through the harder times. Right. So, in one regard, you
could say that the difference between a dream and a goal is a dream is
potentially vague and and inarticulate, right, So it's just kind of like this
throwing something out there into the universe, this is what I would do.
Once you start to put structure to that, it becomes a goal. You
can turn a dream into a goal by by being able to figure out the
steps that it will take to get there and not just kind of like,
oh, my my dream one day is to visit ten countries. Right,
it's like, okay, so what does it take to get there? Well,
it costs this much money, and it costs this much time, and
you have to get a passport, and you have to like there are things
you have to do, and that can be scary to articulate the things that
are needed, because now it becomes something that is not just kind of you
know, you know, arthereal, it is it is something that is that
can be real if you make it real and make helping employees make their dreams
something that is that is real to them. Again, that could be scary,
but it can also be very freeing and it can help really focus an
employee on whether or not what they're doing right now now is the right thing
they should be doing to get them closer to that because the moment you start
to think about something as being just a dream, which is like a oh,
if the univers aligns, then it will happen to Oh, no,
this is something that I can actually make happen if I do the right things
and take the right steps in the right order over the right timeline. Once
they start to consider that, it will become much harder to discard those things
because now it becomes something that is attainable. It's something you can actually make
happen, not just something that might happen to you one day. Absolutely,
and with that it brings us to this episode's one minute hack. But first
a few words from our sponsors. All right, for this episode is ad
minute hack. Here's I want you to do. Think about this concept of
pacing yourself with the concept of following your dreams and incorporate them together when you
have conversations with your employees and with yourself. The two things need to work
together. So when you're talking to employees, talk to them about short term
and long term goals and goals that they would do both within the confines of
the tradition career path that you could help them with in the role they're currently
in, as well as what they would do if I had nothing to do
with this job. What would they do if they had to work, but
they, you know, had they were independently wealthy and they could do whatever
they wanted to, but they still had to work. What would they do?
Help them? Figure out how you can help them in their day to
day work that what that aligns that with what their long term dreams are.
Even if there's not much that can be done, things can be done that
have nothing to do with work too, things like helping them, you know,
align their schedule with something else they want to do that might get them
closer to it. So if they're doing something for you that has nothing to
do with their long term their long term dreams, this doesn't mean that you
can't help them or or engage them in the process of articulating them and making
sure they understand that there is a process and that there is no end to
this. It's just what steps am I taking. There's a there's an old
adage I love It says I'm not there yet, but I'm closer than I
was yesterday. If you can get your employees to believe that, it is
that they are closer today than they were yesterday. It mitigates a lot of
the potential unease and unrest that employees can feel, like when they start to
feel stagnated and and they're they're not moving up fast enough. It's possible that
they are moving up at just the right speed. They just don't look at
the things they do each day as stepping stones to getting there. They're looking
at the next promotion as a stepping stone and there's nothing before that that that's
the wrong mindset, and you help your employees get there. Yeah, that's
kind of what I was going to share a little bit as well as I
think that the ability to help connect dots, the ability to help people,
you know, feel and understand uh, what pace is and why it's important
and and when you're gonna move fast and you're gonna slow down a little bit,
and why those things happen and where those things happen. The more time
that you can spend with with those that are that are motivated, that that
are that are you know, kind of raising their hands, that are motivated,
they want to go, they want to grow, and spending the time
with them to help them understand some of these concepts I think is super helpful
and healthy and allows them to know that the work they're doing every day is
getting them where they want to go, both professionally and personally. When you
think about dreams right right, and I'll say this one last time, it's
very important that in the process of doing this, you don't cause an employee
who is always raising their hands trying to tick on more things that you don't
cause them to lose that thing that made them want to do that. That
mindset is the type of mindset that allows people to move forward in their career.
The goal is not to stop that from happening. The goal is to
make sure they understand what the process is so that when they continue to raise
their hand for more tasks and to take on more things, that the conversations
you have with them around that process don't end with them thinking, oh,
you know, this is my leader shutting me down again, this is my
telling me not to do something. It's like, no, there's there's a
there's a right way, and there's a treading waterway, you know, and
and taking on more things simply for the take of taking them on that won't
help them move towards their goals. That's the wrong thing they should be focusing
their energy on things that will move them forward. And it's your job as
a leader to help them, you know, figure out which ones fall into
which category. Absolutely, and with that brings us to the end of this
episode. This is hacking your leadership. I'm Lorenzo and I'm Chris, and
we'll talk to you all next time.